[For further information on the Electronic Forum on Biotechnology in Food and Agriculture see the Forum website.
Note, participants are assumed to be speaking on their own behalf, unless they state otherwise.]

-----Original Message-----
From: Biotech-Mod2
Sent: 07 March 2007 10:44
To: 'biotech-room2@mailserv.fao.org'
Subject: 2: Marker-assisted selection for yield under water stress

I am Dr. N. Manikanda Boopathi, Faculty at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, India. I have research projects on "Improving the productivity of rice and cotton under water limited environments" through molecular marker-assisted selection (MAS). A team of researchers at this University is involved in development of mapping population in rice and cotton for genetic dissection of yield under water stress. We hope this conference may open up new kind of resource for development of crop cultivars suitable for dry environments.

I request the people involved in this conference to provide a detailed protocol for QTL mapping and MAS which will be more beneficial to the scientists working in developing countries.

Dr. N. Manikanda Boopathi
Assistant Professor (Bio-Tech)
Department of Plant Molecular Biology and Biotechnology
Centre for Plant Molecular Biology
Tamil Nadu Agricultural University
Coimbatore 641 003
Tamil Nadu, India
Mobile phone: +91 98425 09611
biotechboopathi (at) yahoo.com

[The subject of MAS, where molecular markers (such as microsatellites) in close proximity to genes of interest are used to enhance genetic gain, was the subject of a previous e-mail conference in this Forum, entitled "Molecular marker assisted selection as a potential tool for genetic improvement of crops, forest trees, livestock and fish in developing countries", which took place at the end of 2003. During the conference, the main issues discussed were whether MAS should be a priority in developing countries; costs of MAS; putting MAS in context; MAS in relation to conventional breeding programmes; technical details of MAS use; which traits for MAS?; practical applications of MAS; intellectual property rights issues; differences in capacity between developing countries; role of the CGIAR and international organizations; and public-private sector linkages. All the information from the conference, including papers from a workshop on the same subject held beforehand in Turin, Italy, is available at http://www.fao.org/biotech/conf10.htm Contact me if you would like to receive the background and/or summary document from this conference by e-mail...Moderator].

-----Original Message-----
From: Biotech-Mod2
Sent: 07 March 2007 12:50
To: 'biotech-room2@mailserv.fao.org'
Subject: 3: Focus on dryland crops

I am Dr P S Janaki Krishna from India. I am working as a Subject Expert (Biotechnology) at the Biotechnology Unit of Institute of Public Enterprise, Hyderabad. Firstly, I would like to thank the FAO for organizing this e-mail conference coinciding with the World Water Day. It fits well into the theme "Coping with Water Scarcity'. I also thank the FAO for providing an exhaustive Background Document giving details on status of availability of water.

Most of us are aware that all the Member States of the United Nations have pledged to meet the eight Millennium Development Goals by the year 2015. This pledge reiterates the fact that we cannot pass over the role of agriculture in meeting the primary goal of alleviating poverty and hunger, as agriculture forms the backbone of economies in most of the developing countries. Particularly dryland agriculture, practiced on 84% of total area cultivated in the world and providing about 67% of the world's total food output and inhabitated by majority of resource-poor farmers and subject to many biotic and abiotic factors, plays an important role. Furthermore, the technologies that brought the 'green revolution' have had little impact on these areas. The challenge, therefore, is to develop technologies that bring sustainability in these drylands.

Amongst the various technologies, 'biotechnology' proves to be a powerful toolbox that can be applied to develop better products and production processes for industrial and agricultural applications. We have been observing that while tackling the moisture stress in crops there is a lot of work progressing in research areas like marker-assisted selection, converting C3 plants into C4 plants, isolating novel genes that are stress responsive and transferring genes that are responsible for abiotic stress tolerance into other crops etc. However, all these techniques are being utilized extensively in improving water use efficiency in irrigated or commercial crops and major breakthroughs are yet to be noted since tackling water stress in crops is a complex and integrated problem connected with various other factors including climate change. Though there are institutes working on rainfed agriculture, globally the thrust on rainfed agriculture is not in relation to its share in agriculture probably because these areas are not as remunerative as the irrigated areas. Hence if we wish to cope with water scarcity in developing countries by using agricultural biotechnological tools, major attention should be given to dryland agriculture. In my opinion this is a priority area for allocating judicious resources and bringing in policy changes.

Dr (Mrs) P S Janaki Krishna,
Subject Expert (Biotechnology)
Biotechnology Unit,
Institute of Public Enterprise
Osmania University Campus
Hyderabad - 500 007,
India
jankrisp (at) yahoo.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Biotech-Mod2
Sent: 07 March 2007 13:58
To: 'biotech-room2@mailserv.fao.org'
Subject: 4: Focus on dryland agriculture

I am Dr Luciana Di Ciero from Brazil. I am working as a scientific researcher and I coordinate a forest biosafety project (we are working with eucalyptus) at the Science Forest Department of the Agriculture College at Sao Paulo University (public university). There are several biotechnology projects being developed at my university with eucalyptus, sugarcane, passiflora, citrus, cotton, tomato, etc. The main goals of those projects are insect and disease resistance and abiotic factors resistance (mainly dry resistance). I would like congratulate the FAO for organizing this conference about a theme so important to dryland farmers.

Particularly dryland agriculture in Bazil is practiced in the northeast of my country and the majority of the farmers are small and poor ones. Our public research institutes and universities have the duty to develop technology to reach these farmers and solve the hunger problem in dry areas, always looking for sustainability. In my opinion, first and second generation of biotechnology is a powerful toolbox that can help to develop better plant varieties and microbial products to address drylands.

Luciana Di Ciero
Laboratorio de Recursos Geneticos e Biotecnologia Florestal
Departamento de Ciencias Florestais
ESALQ/USP
Fone: (19) 34368681
Fax: (19) 34368601
Av. Padua Dias, 11
Caixa Postal 09 - CEP 13418-900
Piracicaba, S.P.
Brazil
Visite o meu BLOG: http://www.biotechbrasil.bio.br
e-mail: ldiciero (at) esalq.usp.br

-----Original Message-----
From: Biotech-Mod2
Sent: 07 March 2007 14:31
To: 'biotech-room2@mailserv.fao.org'
Subject: 5: Re: Focus on dryland crops

Prof KV Peter Ph D
Professor of Horticulture
Kerala Agricultural University
KAU -PO, Vellanikkara,
Thrissur, Kerala State
India - 680656
kvptr (at) yahoo.com